Free Luna Marine by Ian Douglas Page B

UN hopper was climbing fast now, rising above the bug as the bug descended. As the range closed to within thirty meters, Kaitlin could see the airlock door on the hopper just beneath its cockpit windows; the door was open and a space-suited figure was leaning out, a figure wearing a bright blue UN helmet and aiming a rifle. She didn’t see a muzzle flash, but she thought she felt a vibration, a dull thud from somewhere beneath her feet.
    â€œWe’re under fire,” she warned.
    â€œI see him.” Dow hit the main ventral thruster for a two-second burst, and Kaitlin felt her knees sag with the acceleration. The bug gained the altitude advantage on the hopper. A moment later, Dow angled the LSCP over, nose down, and fired again, banking slightly with the port thrusters to send the ungainly bug drifting across and above the UN hopper’s flight path.
    There was no time for calculations or pulling up numbers or scenarios on the computer. The entire maneuver was strictly seat-of-the-pants, executed within the space of five seconds. As the bug passed ten meters above the hopper, Dow brought the ungainly craft’s nose up and fired the main thrusters again.
    They couldn’t see whether the invisible burst of hot plasma was on target or not, but as the bug rotated slowly at Dow’s practiced touch, the other vehicle came into view a second later. Together, wordlessly, they watched as the hopper continued drifting down toward the surface, rushing to meet its own shadow…and then the two merged in a sudden, silent burst of Lunar dust. The hopper crumpled and rolled, cartwheeling in slow-motion bounds low across the surface, hurling up great, arcing jets of dust with each impact. As it came to rest, a blurring cloud of dust enveloped the wreckage, settling with agonizing slowness.
    Kaitlin dropped a gloved hand on Lieutenant Dow’s shoulder. “Congratulations, Lieutenant. I think you just scored the first shoot-down of an enemy craft on the Moon.”
    â€œFour more and I’m an ace,” Dow replied. He shook his head. “Don’t think I’d care to try that again, though.” Holding the stick in his left hand, he punched in a series of commands with his right, firing port and starboard attitude jets that thumped and bumped through the hull and against Kaitlin’s boots. The bug descended swiftly, narrowly missing a tumble of huge, gray boulders before the view was obscured by a cloud of rising dust, and the landing pads settled with a bump and a jar into the hard-packed regolith.
    â€œContact light!” Dow called, reaching out to flip down a row of switches. “Thrusters off and safed. Reactor to standby. You’re clear to debark.”
    â€œRight.” She keyed the platoon channel. “Gunny Yates? We’re down. Move ’em out!”
    â€œCopy that, Lieutenant. All right, Marines, you heard the lieutenant! We’re moving!”
    LSCP-44, Call sign Raven
Picard Ringwall, The Moon
0914 hours GMT
    Frank Kaminski brought his ATAR to his chest, waiting in the dark and close-packed confines of the airlock as the chamber’s atmosphere bled away. A winking red light flicked green, then the outer door swung slowly open, flooding the airlock with silvery light.
    â€œHit the beach, Marines!” Yates shouted over the platoon channel. “Go! Go! Go!”
    He crowded ahead close behind Lance Corporal Nardelli, feeling the vibrations through his boots as the file pounded down the metal grating that served as a debarkation ramp. The regolith gave beneath his feet with a crunch felt rather than heard, like thin, crusty snow; directly ahead, the sun blazed above the shadowed western cliffs of Crisium, beneath the slender, just-visible blue-and-silver bow of a crescent Earth.
    As at Fra Mauro, he felt again the mingled feelings of awe and desolation. There were no stars visible in the side of the sky near the sun, but if he turned away and looked up, an